


Who Needs Private Security Anyway

by Justanothershortstory_sofar



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Bodyguard, Bodyguard Romance, Canon-Typical Violence, Crush, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Smut, F/F, Fluff and Smut, Kidnapping, Non-Graphic Violence, Slow Burn, Some background fjord/jester, let's face it this isn't mature yet but it will get ther, probably eventually mollymauk/caleb
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-04
Updated: 2019-02-06
Packaged: 2019-06-05 01:29:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 14,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15159431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Justanothershortstory_sofar/pseuds/Justanothershortstory_sofar
Summary: In Which Yasha Agrees to Babysit a Spoiled Brat Who Might Be Attractive, Maybe, Under Specific Circumstances, she Supposes AND In Which Xenoth is a Little Bitch Who Can’t Keep a Promise.  UNFINISHED:  On Hiatus Pending Major Rewrites, See Chapter 12





	1. Terms of Engagement

ONE: The BODYGUARD, from dawn to dusk, will not leave the CLIENT alone, ensuring the CLIENT’s day-to-day security.

Yasha

Yasha took time with her sword, running a whetstone, then a greyish cloth along the razor-sharp edge, polishing the metal until it gleamed in the courtyard mid-morning sun. She had no contract work this morning, and had an intent on finding some work for the week, perhaps at the local shipyard. Most of that tended to be simple, unloading boxes and keeping looters from pulling a down and dirty on wealthy merchant ships. Paid well too. 

“Yasha!” The familiar purple tiefling waves to her from the other side of the court. “I was looking for you.”

“Mollymauk.” Yasha continues to walk to her post for the morning. 

“There’s a special request for you today,” as soon as she gets close, he passes her a large white envelope. “Personal bodyguard gig.”

“I don’t do personal guarding.” Yasha flips through the paperwork. “And I have a job in mind.”

“You do this one,” Molly steps in her way. She could easily push him aside, but she stops for a moment. “The royal fucking family asks for the best security I have, I send you, and nobody else. Your schedule is clear, you’re going.”

“Sorry, Molly.” Yasha passes him the papers. “Send someone else. Fjord, Jester maybe. I’m not the only competent enforcer you have.”

“Fjord and Jester are busy. Everyone else took too much work. It’s five hundred gold, Yasha,” Molly crosses his arms. “A day. You’re taking it.”

“What’s your cut on that, then?” Yasha hums. “Twenty-five percent? Leaving me with 325 a day.”

“325 is more than you’d make at any local pub or dock,” Molly says. “And I’ll lower my fee, just for you. I’ll take 20%. That's per day, Yasha."

Yasha begins to stroll away. 

“So, you’re doing it?” Molly smiles.

“I’ll give you your cut when this turns into a good job, Molly.” Yasha turns back to the tiefling. “Who needs a personal guard anyway?” 

 

Beau

“What do you want from me, Xenoth?” Beau doesn’t look up from the book on her lap as her bedroom door opens. 

“Beauregard.” Xenoth sounds stern from the doorframe. 

“I can’t read minds.” Beau sings just a touch. Her foot bounces, her heel digging further into the window frame she’s leaned against. “Tell me what you want.”

“I’m here to revisit the… security issue, Beauregard.” Xenoth coughs. “Your father insisted on hiring someone.”

“Xenoth.” Beau closes the book with a soft thud, setting it to her side as she walks over to the blond elf, her shorter countenance still more powerful, making him cower ever so slightly. Beau relishes the small control she holds over her father’s deputy. “What was our deal. You make it clear to my father that I don’t need security and leave me alone, I don’t try and get rid of you.”

“He insisted on bringing security in today.” Xenoth squeaks, trying to regain composure. He runs a hand over his pale blond curls. “There’s one coming up the stairs now. He says,” Xenoth clears his throat.

“Yes, Xenoth?” Beau tilts her head. “I don’t have all day.”

“That you will take one guard,” Xenoth finishes. “And that one will stay. If it doesn’t work, he’ll send two. Then four, and eight. He’ll keep doubling it...”

“Until I have my own private fucking army.” Beau interrupts. Xenoth nods in agreement. “Right, bye now Xenoth.” She shuts the door, using it as leverage to push Xenoth out into the hall. 

Beau runs a hand through her hair, tying the few loose strands back into the ponytail. Crossing her legs, she gets back to her book, absentmindedly tracing her finger along the thin steel bars crosscutting her window. 

A knock, presumably Xenoth again, brings Beau back to the real world, away from her delightful fantasy novel. 

“I told you to go away, Xenoth.” She calls out, not moving. 

“I’m looking for Beauregard.” A voice, clear and deep, ringing like one of the bells from Ioun’s temple, comes through the door. 

Curious, Beau stands again, opening the knob and leaning against the alternate door jamb. 

“Why are you looking… for me?” Beau finds herself faltering, leaning even more heavily on her arm currently above her, braced against the doorjamb. Looming a good head-and-  
shoulders taller than her is an Amazonian goddess, someone not out of place in her novels. Her hair, black at the root and white at the tip, falls over part of her face, and a grey leather-gloved hand slides it away. Her leather and hide armor clings in all the right places, showing curves and muscles larger and bolder than any she’d seen. Beau feels blood rush to her face and, even though she knows this to be a natural biological response, tries to keep from blushing. Smooth recovery, Beau. Say something- anything. “How can I help you.”

 

Nice.

“I’m with private security.” The goddess clears her throat, presenting paperwork. “Your father cleared me already.” 

“So this is…?” Beau looks over the papers.

“The beginning of a very long relationship.” The woman absentmindedly taps her fingers against her leg. “I’ll be here, dawn to dusk, pretty much every day. Longer, sometimes. Mind if I come in?”

Beau moves aside, swinging the door open fully. “Mind if you introduce yourself?”

“Ah. Yasha.” Yasha strolls into the room, taking a mental scan of the windows and entrances. 

Beau nods, sitting back at her windowsill. She feels her nose tickle- the early signs of a nosebleed. Fuck, this was not going to end well. 

“Oh, shit.” Beau wipes at it with the back of her hand, wrapped in dark blue cloth. 

“Here.” Yasha hands her a handkerchief from her pocket.

Beau holds it to her nose, immensely regretful of her face’s response to the most amazing woman she’s ever seen in her life. On the other hand- maybe, just maybe, this private security thing would work out in her favor.


	2. Can One Call It A Hostage Negotiation When You Are The Hostage?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Which Beau and Yasha Jointly Realize Just How Fucked They Are To Have To Coexist

TWO: THE BODYGUARD may escort THE CLIENT as requested by THE CLIENT or THE EMPLOYER, as long as it is deemed secure by THE BODYGUARD and THE EMPLOYER.

Beau

“So, Yasha.” Beau smiles one of her shit-eating-grins. “Let’s talk.” “What about?” Yasha still stands by the door, hand ready to grasp the massive broadsword on her back.

“You’re here dawn to dusk,” Beau leans back, trying to look cool. Gods, she wanted to look cool. “My father has me under lock and key day and night. I thought you might be willing to help me have some fun.”

“I’m not the sort to braid hair and gossip.” Yasha raises her brow in curiosity. “What did you have in mind?”

Beau leans in closer, dropping the tone and volume of her voice to a huskier whisper.

“You can get me out of here.” Beau smiles. “Not for long periods of time, but for an hour or so. Maybe. What do you say?”

“I say,” Yasha says, unfazed. “That that sounds like a security issue. So for now, no.”

“Can you talk about anything that isn’t security, Yasha?” Beau slumps back, defeated.

“Like what?” Yasha’s lip twitches, almost forming a smile. She’d be lying if she said she didn’t enjoy Beauregard’s spunk.

“Like…” Beau trails off. “I dunno. What’s your favorite food?”

“Uh.” Yasha thinks for a moment. This is exactly why she never did personal bodyguarding, this whole ‘tell me about yourself’ thing would never have happened if she’d gone to another one of her shipyard jobs. “Rats. Rats are pretty good.”

“Rats,” Beau asks, flatly. “Really?”

“What-”

“I mean, I heard about them as street food,” Beau stares up at her ceiling, just to take her eyes off of Yasha. “Down in the village, but I’ve never tried.”

“You should.” Yasha bites the inside of her cheek.

“I mean, I would,” Beau smirks. “But someone isn’t taking me to the city.”

“Ha.” Yasha stands. Behind Beau, the sun makes its final descent below the horizon, staining the sky with brilliant reds, purples, and blues. “My time is up. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Beau just nods as the amazon walks out, closing the heavy door behind her.

“Oh Ioun,” Beau exhales, looking to the little shrine to her goddess in the corner of her room, still faintly burning incense from this afternoon. “Why’d you fuck me over with her?”

There was no way she’d ever be into a girl like her. And Beau was totally into her. Resulting in a wonderful clusterfuck with her, Yasha, her father, and Xenoth that had Beau pinned right where her father wanted her to be.

 

Yasha:

“So,” Mollymauk grins at her from the lounge in their shared quarters.

His tail flicks across the velvet fabric, the pointed tip tracing the tufted dimples. “You’re home awfully late.”

Yasha leans her broadsword down on the ground, sitting down with a huff across from the tiefling in a plush armchair. Sighing, she slides off her boots, tipping them upside down to get the dust and pebbles out from her shoe. “Of course I am.”

“What do you mean, of course?” another figure pokes their head through a doorframe. The glint of blue skin and bells on horns gives her away.

“Mollymauk got me a job, Jester.” Yasha wiggles her toes, relishing their looseness. “It’s nothing new.”

“Personal security is new.” Jester sits down next to Molly, brushing his tail aside with a hissed infernal “ _Stop hogging the sofa, you bastard._ ”

"Sooo." Mollymauk's shit-eating grin remains on his annoyingly-purple face. "How was your first day, sweetie."

"Perfectly boring." Yasha smiles back. Two could play at this game. "Exactly why I don't do private security."

"Oh come on, Yasha." Jester winks. "There's gotta be more to it than that."

“Might I ask what you’re doing in our house, Jester?” Yasha fires back. “In Fjord’s room?”

Jester sticks out her tongue. Yasha laughs, heading off in the direction of her own bed. She had a feeling that this job wouldn’t get easier on day two.

"Ah ah ah," Mollymauk calls out to her. "What about my cut, you big albino lump?"

Yasha flips him off, smiling. "I get paid at the end of the week," She turns her head back over her shoulder. "'S more than you deserve, you ruddy purple bastard."

"You're welcomeeee," Molly sings.

"For what?" Yasha asks, partially to be annoying.

"The girl."

Yasha stops walking. "What?"

"She's cute, isn't she?" Mollymauk picks at his fingernails. "You're welcome."

"I suppose." Before Jester can grin, Yasha cuts her off. "In an annoying, here's the girl I have to look after kind of way. You know she's trying to get me to take her places?"

Jester starts to hum some romantic ditty, pulling Mollymauk off the sofa. The pair of tieflings are no longer paying attention to her, instead waltzing around their small living space to Jester's song and Mollymauk's off-key harmony.

"Yeah. Really, more annoying than anything."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The slow burn begins to simmer! Really, I have like one plot idea for this, so we'll see where it goes. If you liked my late night ramblings, please do leave a comment and hit that kudos button! (It helps me see just how late I can write these where they still make sense!)  
> For more of my work, Critical Role musings, and random shit that's on my mind consider paying me a visit on Tumblr @zoetriestobecoolbutnope
> 
> Thanks, people.


	3. It's Not Legally A Crush If You Do Your Darndest To Ignore The Fucker

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Yasha and Beau Exhaust Any and All Remaining Conversation Topics

THREE: The BODYGUARD will provide appropriate requests as desired by the CLIENT.

Beau  
Over the first five days, she and Yasha developed a pattern. Yasha would arrive sometime in the early morning, when Beau had been up for hours, meditating and sparring with the training dummy in the courtyard. Beau would wipe the sweat away with a wet towel and Yasha would stand there. Beau would go to the baths and Yasha would stand there. Beau offered food and Yasha would decline.

Really, Beau had a routine, and Yasha collided with it, smacking Beau with the reality that she had an obtrusive and large shadow that didn’t really speak or eat.  
She was beginning to dread this as she started her spars. At first, Yasha was intriguing, something new to add to her life back and forth from towers and courtyard in her father’s house. She was a new person, at least in theory. In reality, Xenoth was almost more interesting to be around, and Yasha barely spoke.  
Beau turned to stretch and jumped at the sudden appearance of Yasha.

“HI!” Was that her voice? So… annoying? “Ha, didn’t see you there. I should put a bell on you or something.” She didn’t seem to get it. Quick, Beau. Recovery. “Cause you’re so sneaky.”

“I feel that would defeat the purpose.” Yasha looked down at her with her multicolor eyes.

“Yeah, probably.” Beau rests her arm on the wooden training dummy, leaning on it. It would have looked cool if not for the spinning portion of the dummy, which promptly swung in the opposite direction, dropping Beau to the ground and smacking her in the face with a flailing limb.

“Shit. Okay.”

“You alright?” Yasha offers her arm, her lips arranged into an almost smirk, masked by concern for her charge.

“Yeah. Say, Yasha.” Beau sits up, wiping her face. “You seem fairly strong. Care to be my spar partner? Considering this one doesn’t seem to want to play today.” She gives the dummy a kick, ignoring the sting in her ankle as the unforgiving wood smacks back.

“I don’t know. That’s not really in my contract.” Yasha bites her lip. Yeah, she probably wants to see Beau continue to get whacked by the dummy.

“Come on. I’ll be gentle, I promise,” Beau tosses her a couple protective pads. “You probably don’t need those, but I sure do if I’m going to hit all of… that.” She gestures vaguely at Yasha’s muscular torso.

Yasha pulls on the padding and assumes a stance, barely bracing herself for Beau’s punch.

Maybe it’s this almost callousness, this belief in Beau’s weakness she perceives from Yasha.

_How could someone with a bodyguard be powerful?_

  
Maybe it’s the constant assumption by her father that she’s merely a weak child, or Xenoth’s consistent infantilizing in his lessons to her.

_You will be protected, Beauregard._

  
Whatever it is, she lashes out, striking three times, two punches and a well placed high kick. It’s a little much to say it caused the giantess to tumble. But Yasha was most certainly caught off guard.

Yasha

  
Beau kicked her ass. At least, the first few did. Partly that was on her for underestimating Beau, that’s no lie. But there was an amazing ferocity, a wild strength in her that Yasha could only admire.

  
“So,” Yasha says in between punches. “You seem fairly strong yourself. Why have a bodyguard?”

  
“Trust me,” Beau grunts. “I’ve been asking myself that as well.”

  
“I suppose it’s my father, constantly underestimating me.”

  
“Sounds like he cares,” Yasha replies.

  
“Thanks for that, Yasha.” Beau cracks her neck, dropping her outer robes to the ground. Yasha had been around long enough to know someone would pick them up, likely Xenoth.

  
Beau, skin sweaty and gleaming in the newly rising sun, stripped down to her half shirt and thin pants, untying and leaving a mass of sweaty robes behind, began to walk to the bathhouse.  
Yasha exhaled. She would never say it to Molly, but this was… much more interesting than any dock job.

  
“Yasha.” Beau turned her head over a muscular shoulder, allowing her nutty brown hair to fall down her back and into her eyes. “You coming?” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this was going to be slow burn into smut... but I was just on a plane for 7 hours (and I'm facing another in a few weeks) and this bitch got long. And she got a plot (honestly I'm as surprised as you are) so idk stay tuned this has a purpose. 
> 
> Thanks so much for reading this one! It's very nearly my most popular fic I am very surprised. I'm glad y'all are enjoying it, so let me know what you think in the comments and be sure to hit that kudos button.
> 
> As always, you can find me on the internet:  
> @zoetriestobecoolbutnope (Tumblr)


	4. Is This A Date? No, How Dare You Think That.  How Dare.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Which Yasha Relents and Immediately Regrets Her Decision

FOUR:  It is the responsibility of the BODYGUARD to secure the CLIENT under any and all circumstances.

Yasha

“Let’s go out.” It had taken two weeks for Yasha to reach this point. But she was fairly certain the only thing keeping her from nailing the other woman to the wall was a vague sense of duty. And if she could get out of close quarters with her, maybe, maybe that would help this urge she felt. Or, at least, get them out of such close proximity.  Beau’s chambers may have been large, but they certainly weren’t nearly big enough for her to not… feel? If that’s even the right word.

“Out to the courtyard?” Beau looked up from her book. After their sparring session, Beau had, on occasion, requested to spar with her. This morning, however, Beau had gone it alone with her quarterstaff, whacking and beating the wooden dummy and Xenon, whenever he got too close to her calculated zone of terror across the courtyard.  (And a good thing too. Yasha was having a hard time continuing to keep a watchful eye when so close to Beau.)

“I mean, let’s go outside. Like, to the market.” Yasha extended a hand to her, helping her up. Her hand fit in hers well, and there was no lying- Yasha liked to help Beau up to her feet. 

“Has the warden lifted house arrest?” Beau cocked an eyebrow. 

“Consider yourself paroled.” Yasha took Beau’s cape from the wall and tossed it to her. “Take the staff and I deem you secure enough.”

Twenty minutes later, and Yasha was no longer sure that this was a good idea at all. Beau was a frantic and indecisive shopper, haggling over the difference of barely a copper, and the way she flirted from stall to stall made Yasha wonder if she was trying to shake a tail. Possibly, her. If Yasha was any less good at her job, maybe Beau could have managed. 

Beau spent time at the bead stalls, looked for new clothes, and now, was making puppy dog eyes at the spiced meats. 

“Here.” Yasha pulled Beau away. “I want to show you something.”

As the pair walked down a few side alleys, Beau gripped her staff tighter. 

“Where are we going?”

“Here.” Yasha stopped in front of another cart with different meats roasting on spits. “Two, please.”

The smell made her stomach growl.  It had been a long time since she’d had one of these. Every time she tasted the same spices, she felt like she had years ago.  Even with the massive life changes, with Molly and Fjord and Jester and Beau, too.

“Yasha,” Beau sniffed the meat on a stick suspiciously, before shrugging and taking a bite. 

Yasha enjoyed the calm, away from the busy roads. More importantly, she enjoyed the hot food in her mouth and her stomach, and Beau’s hand on her arm.  Molly had always made fun of her for all this shit, he’d never really understood why she still considered the cheapest food available a luxury. But whatever.  Beau wouldn’t do that.

“What is this?” Beau swallows. 

“Rat.” Yasha opens her eyes. “You said you’d never had one. And I thought we should fix that.”

Beau

“I didn’t think you remembered that sort of thing,”  Beau smiled. “You know, you’re more,” She made a low growl in her throat, crossing her arms to make her seem buff.  

Yasha actually smiled at Beau’s imitation of her.  Well, more like the corner of her mouth twitched. Kinda.  

Beau took another bite.  From the corner of her eye, she could have sworn she saw something, a flash of fabric and movement.  Carefully, she slid around to Yasha’s other side, partially hiding behind Yasha’s hulking figure. 

“So.  When did you first eat… rat?” Beau flicks her eyebrows at Yasha, who almost looks like she’s not getting Beau’s hints.  She keeps the flitting figures in the corner of her eye. 

The hairs prick up at the back of her neck.  She remembers this feeling, the moments before an attack.  Of course, those days she had someone else by her side.

At the cart, the merchant looks at them suspiciously, not stopping in the cooking of his meats. Beau flashes a glare at him.  He seems to be curious, not malicious. 

Beau slowly begins to pull an immobile and stubborn Yasha out of the alley.  

“Uh, I don’t remember.”  Yasha cocks her head. “Maybe, when I was like six?”

“Oh?? Really??” Beau widens her eyes and jerks her head to the shadowy figure lurking in the back.  Honestly, it looks as if nobody was really on their game. This never used to go down like this. 

Carefully, in a way she hopes looks flirtatious and not conspiratorial, Beau starts to whisper into Yasha’s ear.  As gracefully as possible, she slides up onto her tiptoes, resting her chin on Yasha’s shoulder. No easy feat, considering the enormous height difference between the two women.  Not that… Beau ever thought about that… and how… sexy… that was. 

“Look to your two o’clock,”  She smiles, plants a quick kiss on Yasha’s cheek, then pulls away, dropping down off the balls of her feet.  Nervous, she shifts them back and forth, trying to gain a good balance. Her hand takes a firm hold on the staff strapped to her back. 

Yasha, getting the point, starts to escort her back out of the alley,  her right hand growing itchy for her broadsword. Her left slides around Beau, fitting warmly into the small of her back.  Her cheek warms from Beau’s brief contact, her face grows flush.

Beau keeps a plastered smile on her face, something less hard because of Yasha’s hand almost on her ass.  Movement comes from the corners- and a young woman simply slips past the rat stand, plopping down a copper and taking one for herself.

It seems to be a false alarm.

Beau doesn’t let go of the breath she’s holding.  Yasha keeps one hand on her sword, and to Beau’s delight, the other never leaves her, not until her father’s house crests the hill.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yup plot is on its way. And longer chapters too, I promise. Thanks for reading- if you liked this, please hit the kudos button or leave a comment! I feast off of the positive energy you leave and use it to tear souls apart with fanfics. 
> 
> As always, you can find me on the internet @zoetriestobecoolbutnope on Tumblr.


	5. Okay, There's Two Ways To Deal With This And If You Think I'm Going To Face This You Got Another Thing Coming, Buddy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Which Lesbians Run (Towards Someone and Away From Someone)

Chapter 5

FIVE: The CONTRACT shall be regarded as complete when the EMPLOYER is satisfied, or the BODYGUARD chooses to terminate the contract.

Yasha

“Here.”  Yasha plops the fat bag of coins at the feet of Mollymauk.  “There’s your cut. I’m done.”

“What?”  Molly picks up the bag, weighing it in his hands.  “It’s scarcely been two weeks.”

“I don’t care.  Send Jester tomorrow.”  Yasha starts to unfasten her tall leather boots.  “Tell them I quit, or I need some time off, it hardly matters.”

“Yeah, except it does.”  Molly grabs her arm, sliding on the wooden floor of their shared living room.  The fact that he’s not holding her back scarcely fazes the tiefling. Annoying little bastard.  “One of those has you going back, the other one is done.”

“You choose then.”  Yasha pulls her arm free, turning to stare Molly in the eyes.  “I don’t give a fuck. You got me this job, you choose when it ends.”

“What happened?”  Molly bites his lip, pondering what might be going on in her head. 

“I failed, okay!” Yasha shouts, almost surprised as the words leave her lips.  “I left the house with her, and I got distracted, and I didn’t notice.”

“Is she okay?”  Molly looks surprised, suddenly doubting how Yasha got the coin in his hands.

“She’s fine, noticed it, let me know.”  Yasha huffs her voice back to its normal low cadence.  “But I didn’t do my job, Molly. So I need to leave before it turns out worse.”

She starts to walk away, almost convinced she’s escaped Mollymauk.  

Not quite, it seems.  

“Why her?”  Molly asks. “I’m curious, why is this girl throwing you off?  This has never happened, at least as long as I’ve known you, and judging by how you’re reacting to it.”

“What do you mean by ‘it’?”  Yasha was no fool. She just didn’t want to speak those few words aloud.  By every contract, by every logical business model, Mollymauk would take her away from Beau.

And yes, she had asked for it, somewhat.  But now Yasha was face to face with the idea of not seeing that woman again, and something in her made her want to scream, shake the walls keeping them apart, cry until she had nothing left.  

But for another minute, another second, maybe she could push it down.  Deny it.

“You love her, don’t you?”  Molly’s words crash into her, sink into her like a knife.  

Yasha feels her legs give out under her, and she plops against the wall, shapeless.  

“Do you,”  she starts slowly, takes another deep breath, then tries again.  “Do you have any idea how it feels to be in a room with someone, face to face, and not be able to tell them that they are the air you breathe?  That she’s the reason I’m there, for more reasons than money. That they could refuse to pay me, and I’d still come to her? Over, and over again, I’d come to her.”

“Yes,”  Mollymauk says simply.  He crosses his legs and sits next to her.  “I’ll send Jester tomorrow. You, sleep.”

Yasha nods.  

“I can find more work for you?”  He asks.

“I’ll find it if I need it.”  Yasha starts to stand again, with the sole focus of her bed.  

“Of course.” Mollymauk plants a kiss on her forehead, having gotten up on his tiptoes to do so.  “Goodnight.”

Beau

Yasha was late, and Beau totally… didn’t… mind. She wasn’t pacing, wasn’t checking the clock on her wall, wasn’t watching the sun slowly crawl up the sky.  She picked up one of her books, read the same sentence six times, set it down again. 

Beau’s heart was in her throat.  What if her father decided she was right, and that she really didn’t need a personal guard?  What if he fired Yasha after their outdoor adventures yesterday? What if, what if, what if?

She fiddled with the pendant around her neck, a small gift from a long time ago.  There was no use questioning things that may not be true. 

A knock comes at her door, relieving her from the purgatory she awaits in.  Beau stops at the looking glass, fiddles with her hair, and drops her outer robe, showing off her oiled abdomen and shoulders, the toned arms that came nowhere near Yasha’s.  Satisfied, she struts to the door, swinging her hips. 

“You don’t need to knock anymore, Yash--”  Beau stops mid-sentence. The girl standing before her most certainly was not Yasha.  Firstly, she was a good deal shorter, almost shorter than Beau. And of course, there was the matter that she was a cobalt blue.  

“Hi, there! You must be Beau,”  The tiefling bounces. “I’m Jester, your bodyguard for today.”

“Hi..?” Beau turns around as Jester makes her way into her chambers, brushing past her as if she was a piece of lint in the air.  

“You’re probably wondering where Yasha is?”  Jester runs a finger along the grout in the windows.  “Secure. Also why we were late?”

“Ah, yes?”  Beau tips her head.  “We?” She feels a flickering of hope again in her chest.  

“Well, it’s all because of Molly that we’re late,”  Jester leans against the wall. “I woke up late because that’s what I do when I have my day off.  But then Molly was like ‘Oh Jester, why are you still here? You need to fill in for Yasha,’ and I was hurried, but I took my time getting here, I have my routines to fulfill.  So then I got here, and your dad- what an asshole, I mean, really- was all like ‘I’m paying for the best if I don’t have the best I’m paying for two of the second best,’ so I said okay okay, I’ll fix it.  And I sent Fjord a message to get his ass here and now he’s here! Hi Fjord! That’s Fjord, by the way.” Jester points to the self-conscious Half-Orc standing in Beau’s door frame. 

He gives a small wave.  

“Jester, don’t overdo it.”  He blushes, then offers her a hand off the windowsill.  Jester brushes her hands along her skirt, patterned with cherry blossoms.  

“So, I’m confused.”  Beau crosses her arms.  “Where is Yasha, exactly? And who sent you?”  

“She’s taking some time off.”  Fjord answers, helpfully. “I don’t know much more ‘n that.  And the lot of us- Jester, Yasha, myself, along with a few others, work for a Mollymauk Tealeaf, of Tealeaf Security Services.”

“So you just do this work.”  Beau tries to keep her mind from wandering to Yasha and why she might have left.  

“Yeah, pretty much,”  Jester chirps. 

Beau tries to focus on what she’s saying, but her mind constantly returns to every event from the past few days, the sparring, the trip to the festival.  Every errant look at Yasha’s curves, her breasts, her ass, the meeting of hardness and softness in her muscular frame. The sheer power paired with her grace and gentleness where Yasha’s hand had rested on Beau’s back.  Her desire to see Yasha use that broadsword, more than anything. 

Ioun, she was hopelessly lost.  

She needed to find Yasha again, talk with her.  Be in the same room with her. 

But more than that, she really needed to have Yasha fuck her.  

“Beau.”  Jester cocks her head.  “Are you there? Beauuuuuu.”

“Yeah, uh, sorry.”  Beau blinks hard. 

“So.  We can play chess, we can paint our fingernails, what do you want to do?”  Jester grins.

“Can you get me out of here?”  Beau cocks an eyebrow. “Just for the day.”

“What for?  If you don’t mind my asking, that is.”  Fjord’s smooth voice is very welcome in Beau’s ear. 

“Oh, I’m just. Looking for someone.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 5, and this is officially my most Kudos-ed fic ever! Thank you so much for reading! 
> 
> If you did by any chance LIKE the writing here (how) please hit that Kudos button and comment below! 
> 
> As always, you can find me and more of my writing on the Tumblr @zoetriestobecoolbutnope


	6. Okay, You Don’t Wanna Deal With Me.  Have You Considered the Same is True For Me, Huh? Bet You Didn’t Think About That- Oh, You Did? Well.  I Didn’t Think I’d Be Here, Let’s Be Honest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Beau and Yasha turn to others for support.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Pops champagne* She's officially a Mature fic, ladies, gents, and nonbinary friends. I wasn't planning on publishing again so soon, but when you spend two hours writing smut when you should be asleep ;) you gotta publish at least some of it.

Beau

Jester and Fjord trail behind her by a few steps; a noticeable difference from Yasha’s stride behind her shadowing.  With the guard, it was significantly easier to leave the house, and it made Beau seriously question the months she’d spent denying a guard. 

“So Beau,” Jester bounced closer to her. “Who are you looking forrr?”

“An old friend of mine,” Beau bites her lip as she thinks about this ‘old friend.’ “She used to live along this street. Although, who knows where she is anymore.” She mutters the last line to herself. 

“Okay, what was her name?” Jester asks. “Like, we’re really good at finding people, if you want we can try and find her.”

“Uh, sure, I guess.” Beau fiddles with the jade pendant around her neck for a moment. “What do you need? To find her?”

“Her name, age, race, star sign,” Jester rambles, counting the items on her fingers. “Hair color, eye color, if you ever had sex-”

“Jester, stop teasing her,” Fjord interjects. “She can’t really do that.”

“But Fjordddd,” Jester pouts, turning her head. “I wanna know if we’re looking for Beau’s old fuckbuddy.”

Beau coughs, sputtering. 

“I’m sorry, what?” Beau almost laughs, trying to keep from blushing. “Riya? A fuck… no, don’t be, don’t be ridiculous.”

“Yesss,” Jester pumps her fist in the air. “I knew it! Riya, such a pretty name.”

“Ah, no..?” Beau shook her head. 

“Look, you’re blushing! Fjord, she’s blushing!” Jester threw her arm around Beau, her voice dropping to a low purr. “You must have had really good sex, huh.”

Beau bites her tongue to keep from speaking. In reality, she wasn’t thinking only about Riya. 

She was most certainly thinking about some of the things that she and Riya did, the folds around her clit and curves of her breasts Riya’s lips found themselves. She was most certainly thinking about running her hands through fire red hair, placing her lips on Riya’s collarbone and slowly moving down slowly. And she was certainly thinking about what those similar activities would feel like with Yasha, what her fingers would feel like inside of her. 

If she’s being honest, there’s no way Yasha would ever love her like that.  No way Yasha could love someone like her. Riya was someone rare, the only one like her.  She’d made that more than clear over their time together. Riya couldn’t be duplicated. Their something so sinfully  _ perfect _ could never happen with another woman.  

Beauregard wasn’t even sure when Yasha had become the dream, and not reuniting with Riya.  Sure, she’d found Yasha so fantastically attractive, so mysterious. But she’d had plenty of crushes before, and she always came back to Riya. 

“She used to live here,” Beau looks up and down the disheveled building. “The Thorn and Crown Tavern.  Long outta business, but I thought it was still worth a look.” 

Ignoring the other two, Beau strolls casually around to the other side of the building, breaking open a window with her foot.  With a great show of dexterity, she hops into the ground floor of the Thorn and Crown. After three years of abandonment, she wasn’t sure what she was expecting to find.  There was a thick layer of dust over the floorboards and the bar. A few chairs, some broken, were scattered around the almost empty tavern. 

 

Over in the corner was the elevated quarter-circle where Riya made her stage- played a fiddle or simply sang.  Beau had made a deal to the Thorn and Crown, stayed for a drink or two, and the entertainment. The witch-girl with red hair and green eyes that went through you.  She had shared a bottle or two of Beau’s finest when her set was done, her fiddle over her shoulder. 

_ “Ever fucked a woman, Beau?” Riya had asked, a twinkle in her eye.   _

_ “Uh, yeah.”  Beau took another sip of her drink.  “I have. What of it.” _

_ Riya had simply laughed.   _

_ “Want me to show you how it’s really done?” _

 

Making small footprints in the dust, Beau tiptoed to the staircase that leads to the upstairs four-room inn.  The stairs creaked as she stepped carefully on them, the rotted cherry wood of a banister collapsed around part of the steps.  With a final hop, Beau made it to the top without putting her foot through a crumbling board, a great success by her standards of breaking and entering abandoned buildings.  

The hall, once a beautiful buttery yellow color, had faded to a palest possible yellow piss, with a clouded and a boarded over window at the far end.  She knew two of the rooms had collapsed floorboards, and didn’t bother exploring them. But the first door on the left, paneled cherry with a hole where a shining brass knob used to be was intact.  

Beauregard took a cautious step into the room, and took a deep breath, inhaling the memories along with the dust.  The remains of a four-poster bed were still there, with faded blue drapery hanging over a bare mattress. 

 

_ Riya had pulled her inside, and Beau wasted no time, pinning her to the closest wall, pulling the clothes off of her.  God, there was too much covering her, too many restrictive clothes.  _

_ She groaned as Riya bit and kissed her breasts, sucking the delicate skin on her neck hard enough to leave a bruise.  Beau responded in kind, pulling the laces on the dress Riya was struggling to get out of.  Her back was like velvet, pale against Beau's darker hand.  Her fingers made circles around Riya's perfect ass.  Really, ass like that was a rarity, a luxury Beau rarely lets herself enjoy.   _ _ When she couldn’t wait any longer, Beau had lifted her in her arms, setting Riya’s hips above hers, throwing her onto the bed. _

 

She smiled.  There was no-one here now, nobody to think about the night after sleepless night she had spent fucking in this room.  

 

_ She had awoken after a few precious hours of sleep.  Beauregard was a mass of bruises and bites from Riya, the vixen she’d charmed to come to bed with her.  She picked up her clothing from the floor, dressing quickly. But before she left, she hesitated. Riya, violent and hungry a few passionate hours earlier, had curled up upon herself, something so sweet.  Beau was never one for a relationship. But this? This she wanted to make hers.  _

_ The window facing the street let in enough early morning light to illuminate the writing desk Beau took a seat at.  She took a few moments to compose a note, then a few more fiddling with it, folding it into something resembling a flower.  Really, you kinda needed to squint. Very hard.  _

_ Either way, it was sweet, she supposed.   _

 

Now, Beau sets down another flower, resting it on the bed.  

“You know.”  Beau smiles, addressing an empty room.  “Keep in touch. If you want.” 

“Beau?  I don’t know if it’s quite safe to be out here.”  Fjord calls from downstairs. “Find anything?”

“Nah,” Beau hops down the stairs quickly.  “Dead end, like I thought it would be. She’s long gone.”

“Fjord, let’s go get donuts.”  Jester crouches on the ground, brushing away some of the dust.  

“I don’t know, we should probably get back soon.” Fjord starts to walk back to the window he and Jester had evidently come through.  

“Okay, well I’m done anyway.”  Jester jumps up from her crouch, and Beau takes a look at what she had drawn on the ground.  A gigantic dick. Somehow, that fits with what she knows about Jester thus far.

“Yeah, let’s get donuts.”  Beau snickers. “Nice drawing, Jester.”

 

Yasha

Something was very clearly wrong with her.  

First, there was the shitshow of last night.  Obviously, she was tired, there was no other way she would have told Molly she was in love, let alone THINK such an absurd thing.  Which, of course, lead into her quitting her job, even more bullshit. She’d be getting that back, and soon. 

Second, she slept in this morning.  For years, Yasha awoke before the sun, without fail.  However, today, she’d been startled awake by bird calls and sunshine.  Strange, when something that sounds so pleasant is so unsettling. For another hour, she’d sat in her bed, not really looking at anything, just thinking about all the things that were wrong with her. 

Maybe, just maybe- she was right last night.  Not about the love, that was clearly not possible in her mind.  There was no way someone like Beau would give her a second glance, this beauty with refinement and grace in her every move, draped in silks and linen, surrounded with texts Yasha couldn’t read, let alone understand.  

That is, if she liked Beau like THAT.  Which she didn’t. She was sure.

No, Beau didn’t like her, and she didn’t like Beau.  However, whatever was going on with her had its start at the beginning of when she went to work for her.  

She needed to go on another trip.  Yasha did these on occasion, slip away from Molly and Jester and Fjord and just walk, for days, weeks, months at a time.  If they noticed she was gone, they never mentioned it. 

Without a cloud in sight, no work to attend to, and plenty of coin from her last few jobs, Yasha began to pack.  She never needed much, but she had a feeling this one might last a good deal longer. 

Yasha started her pilgrimages the same.  As she crossed the threshold of her home, she said a quick prayer to the Stormlord, to keep her home and friends safe. 

_ As I go to protect, protect those I leave behind. _

_ Molly, Jester, Fjord. _

**_Beau._ **

She headed west, to the mountains in the distance.  She’d reach there in a few hours; she had good boots on her feet and a long stride.  Slowly, the city vanished behind her, her home at her back. 

_ Stormlord, guide my path. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! More plot and more sex coming your way. If you liked this fic, consider clicking the kudos button or writing a comment. They are secretly linked to a caffeine and cocaine dispenser that keeps writers writing. Well, not really. But it sure feels like it.
> 
> As always, you can find me and my writing on Tumblr @zoetriestobecoolbutnope


	7. Take Me Where You Are Or A Close Approximation, I Guess.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's been only a day since I updated, but this one's really short, so here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Um yeah, this one gets kinda dark, so I'm updating the tags but I don't want to spoil it. Putting a trigger warning in the notes below, so check those if you feel you may need a warning.

Beau

Jester had her donuts.  She’d offered to share with Fjord and Beau, who’d both politely declined.  Joyful, Jester had skipped slightly before them.

“She’s sweet.”  Beau took confident strides, pulling her arms behind her back to give them a good stretch.  “You should make a move. She’s waiting for it.”

“Ah, I’m sure she doesn’t think of me like that.”  Fjord gave her a small, sad smile.

“No, you know what?”  Beau stops, placing a firm hand on Fjord’s shoulder.  “Fuck that. Really. She likes you, in a 'would be willing to fuck you' way.  So go, make a damn move, you big oaf.”

“We’ve only just met, Beauregard.”  Fjord shakes his head. “And I’m not supposed to leave you alone.”

“Look how close we are.”  Beau gestures ahead to Jester. “Within earshot is close, I’d argue.  I can handle myself.”

“Alright, then.”  Fjord takes a deep breath and determinedly walks to the blue tiefling.  

Beau smiles as he talks with her, placing an arm around her shoulders.

How was she this **good** when it came to others relationships, but as soon as she was involved it became such a shitshow.  It took her less than a few hours to determine that Fjord and Jester enjoyed each other’s company, and likely wanted to date the other.  But it had been two weeks with Yasha, and nothing. And now she had lost her opportunity, which was great.

Likely, she’d never see Yasha again.  It almost made the embarrassing moments a little more bearable.   

Five things happened in the next twenty seconds, as best Beau can tell.

1\. Fjord leaned down, and his lips met Jester’s, who looked surprised, but pleasantly so.  Her hand moved up along his neck, pulling herself up closer to him. Beau sighed with satisfaction.  

  
2\. Someone bumped into Beau, causing her to turn about 90 degrees to the east, and making her drop her staff into the mud.  They vanished into the crowd.

  
3\. As she reached down for the quarterstaff, her hand brushed against something paper- a flower?  Her flower, the one she’d just left for Riya in their old shared room.

  
4\. The fine hairs on the back of Beau’s neck and along her arms stood on end.

  
5\. Something was thrust over her head by persons unknown at her back, their knee jamming into her spine.  

 

Beau claws behind her, slamming the end of her staff into the belly of her attacker.  She almost gets the bag over her head before she feels the dart in her leg, and passes out in the massive crowd of the market.  

 

* * *

 

The monk’s body is a hard one to drag through the alleys.  She had a habit of wearing bright blues and teals, a side effect of being a sheltered, spoilt, brat.

But the boss wanted her, so the dark figure would provide.  After all, the figure owed them.

So they took the large mass and dragged it, taking it through back alleys.  Soon, they would arrive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Kidnapping, general violence
> 
> Muahaha. Leave kudos or comments to express your feelings. Don't be shy, let it out. Thanks for reading, I hope you'll forgive me for what I've done.


	8. A God Is My Wingman, But You Have Your Mom, That’s Cool I Suppose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We're back! Flirting, wingmanning (that's a word now, I want it to be a word so it is,) and some heroic shenanigans about to begin!

Yasha

Yasha paused for a moment at a roadside altar, taking a seat for a quick meal by a gurgling stream.  She’d picked up more supplies at the third town she’d passed, about four days or so into her journey.  Largely, it was peaceful. She slept occasionally under nothing but sky, her god sheltering her from dangers.  Yasha let the occasional raindrop run across her face- it never bothered her. 

Now, the sky was opening, roaring with wind and rolling clouds, grey and purple and blue with the colors of heavens.  It would pass, and Yasha wanted to witness every moment of artistry. In the face of beauty, of nature, how could anyone doubt the care put into the world, in every blade of grass, every valley, every storm?

As she took a bite of an apple, a crack of thunder revealed the presence of her deity.  

_ Yasha.  _

His voice always echoed through her mind, crackling like static, layered like the rain, rhythmic like the storm.  

“My lord,”  Yasha bowed her head, letting the fat plops of rain run along her neck, spraying her with cold, chilling her bones. 

_ Why have you come to journey for me again, champion? _

“Because I… I always find you here.”  Yasha is taken aback by the unusual question. “In the beauty, the danger.”

_ I am there too, you see.   _

“Yes, of course.”  Yasha smiles. “I should look harder for you.”

_ However, you have made a mistake. _

“In what?”

_ Yasha, do not take what I have placed in front of you for granted.  _

“In making the trip?  My lord, I will change course--”

_ She could be your perfect partner, but now, Yasha…  _

“Beau?”  Yasha is hesitant. This… This was the exact opposite from what she’d grown to expect from the Stormlord. The Stormlord didn’t consider her love life, or really, Yasha couldn’t fathom the idea that he’d give a shit He wasn’t much of a romantic.  And she had thought he hadn’t loved her choice to settle down momentarily. 

_ She is in danger. _

“Fuck.”  Yasha shakes her head.  “Of course, she gets into trouble without me.  Of course, I will do what you will of me if you want me to get her, or continue wherever you want me to.”

_ Truly I tell you, she is the one you need to save.  _

“When did she get into trouble?”  Yasha stands briskly. “And where?  If I might know such a thing.”

_ Four days she slumbered.  Now, she awakes, in an unfamiliar space.  She is close to danger. _

“Hold on, Beau,”  Yasha pulls her cloak around her, gathering her things.  “I’m coming. Hey, you!” 

An elven man turns the corner, pulling a cloak taught against the heavy wind and rain, leading a train of ponies.  They’re large enough, far from the warhorse she desires, but they fit the bill. 

“I’m going to need one of your horses.”

 

Beau

She awoke with a pounding in her head, lying on some hard surface.  Groaning, she rubs the bridge of her nose, trying to shield her light-sensitive eyes from the daggers of daylight streaming through… somewhere, Beau wasn’t quite sure.

The smell of human feces slams into her next, foul and rotting.  Like the world's worst hangover, (which she thought she had endured, by the way, as it finished its vice on her head after four days running.  Of course, the hair of the dog she’d tried got her drunk again… Beauregard was never one for moderation,) she felt her stomach roll, her head pound at even the slightest of sounds.  

“Fuck,” Beau sighs.  “Think, Beau.”

She was, at one point, at the market.  She’d told Fjord to make his move with Jester, he had, and then… nothing.  Beau tried to make out any details, but the room was rocking, or her head was spinning, and she didn’t want to do anything.  Had she gotten drunk with them?

Her eyes adjusted to the light.  Still lying down, she tried to get oriented.  She had no clue how much time had passed, nor where she was.  But now that she was awake, she could manage to make her way home again.  

Even though she had thought this was similar to the pangs of a hangover, it wasn’t quite right.  For one, she almost never blacked out enough to not remember even deciding to get drunk, or at the very least, she remembered entering a bar or pouring herself a drink.  Another argument against the hangover: she was with Jester and Fjord then. From the four or so hours she remembers with them, Jester maybe would have partaken with her, but not Fjord, most likely.  Therefore, where were they? More importantly, where the fuck was she?

Once it seemed the spinning in her head were diminishing, she started to ease herself up onto her elbows.  With this movement, the source of the searing light became evident: bolted into the far wall was a porthole style window, halfway covered with brown wax paper.  Iron bars extended from floor to ceiling in front of her, and instinctively, she threw herself against them, trying to break out. 

“Damn it,”  She slammed her shoulder into the unforgiving dark metal in a move that would have dropped a human opponent, but scarcely made the barrier budge.  The pounding made her head hurt, and she slumped back down to the ground, rubbing her temples.

It looked as though there was no way to force herself out of this.  Beau was going to need to talk her way out. And she was shit at talking, let’s be honest.

“That won’t work,” A gruff, heavily accented voice comes from outside the cell.  “Trust me, I’ve tried.”

“Do you have the keys?”  Beau tries to fit her head between the bars to get a look out.  A dumb idea, and fortunately, one that didn’t work- she was pretty sure she didn’t want to get her head stuck. 

“If I had the keys, do you think I’d still be here?”

Beau doesn’t reply. She was sure asking some fucking stupid questions, perhaps the hangover argument made some semblance of sense.  

A door opens, the hinge squealing massively.  

“Vanja, darling.”  A pair of heeled boots clicks, accompanying an almost familiar voice, like one from a dream.  “I never said to bring her here.” 

The footsteps turn a corner, and Beau finds herself face to face with a demure woman, fire red hair and green eyes that went through you.  Tall leather boots and a great grey coat rested on her shoulders, low-cut top revealing the breasts Beau knew all too well. Even five feet away from her, she could smell her perfume, roses and something sharp, and Beau sighed. 

“Riya,”  Beau crosses her arms.  “Why am I not surprised.”

“Hello, gorgeous.”  Riya winks. Turning to her accomplice, her tone changes to one of chastising.  “Get her out of there.”

The key scrapes in the lock and the ambivalent half-orc woman lets her out.  Beau stumbles as the ground rolls beneath her, and Riya catches her, helping her back up onto her two feet.  

“Takes a minute for you to get your sea legs, it appears?”  She hums, her lips moments away from hers. 

“Where you been, Riya?”  Beau pushes her away, trying to make her hair, long since out of its proper place, look decent.  “This is one hell of a hello, I hope you realize.” 

Riya takes a look at her deputy, then to her surroundings.  In a cloud of perfumes and velvet, she looks out of place.

“Let’s go upstairs.  We’ll talk there.” She takes Beau’s hand, leading her to a nearby wooden ladder.  Beau glances back, trying to find the source of the voice she had spoken to. Out of the corner of her eye, she spots a huddled lump of some sort, but before she can make out any real details, she is pulled away, climbing up a ladder and brought, blinking, to the top deck of a massive ship.  

All around her are people- rushing from one deck to another, polishing the big black guns mounted on the deck, climbing the rigging around the mainmast.  Beyond them is simply the sea, no land in any direction to be seen. 

Riya pulls her away from the curious crew and into a room at the head of the ship.  As quietly as she can, she slides the door shut with a slight squeak and a click. 

Beau takes her bearings.  Clearly, she was on a boat.  Likely, said boat was somewhere in the Lucidian Sea, between Wildmont and Tal’Dorei.  And somehow, her Riya, the smuggler barely making it by, became the captain of this ship.    

“I think this is a good place to start,”  Riya pours wine into two crystal glasses, sliding one to Beau.  She crosses her legs, taking a seat on her double bed. “Take a seat, please.”

Beau sits, splaying her legs wide across a plush chair.  The wine is familiar tasting, slightly sweet but fuck, so good.  Her tongue goes a little numb. 

“My father’s wine?”  Beau shook her head. “I’d have thought you’d drunk through the supply I gave you.”

“Gave?”  Riya laughs. “It was a contract, my dear.  Business, nothing else.”

“I seem to call quite a bit of pleasure mixed in there, as well.” Beau takes another sip.  “Is that why you stiffed me out of payment?”

“Well, I tried to deliver.  You were… otherwise occupied.”

“If by that you mean locked up in a monastery?” Beau cocks an eyebrow, leaning in closer to Riya.  “Then yes.”

“Nevertheless,”  Riya grins. “You made it out.”

“I did.”  Beau taps her foot.  “I’m not going to thank you for kidnapping me.”

“Fine.”  Riya sets her glass down, sliding across to Beau, placing one leather boot in between her legs.  “Let me thank you.”

Before Beau can get another word in, the half-orc from earlier interrupts.  

“The Orion is on our port side, Captain.”  Vanja, Beau thinks Riya had called her. “The crew is readying for battle.”

“Thank you.”  Riya took another sip of her wine, then stood, patting Beau on her shoulder.  “Secure our guests, would you? And bring our weapons above deck.”

“What’s going on, Riya?” Beau stares daggers at the half-orc as she pulls Beau to her feet. 

“No time to explain, darling.”  She dusts off her grey serge coat, pulling a silken scarf from a hook on the wall and tying it around her face and jaw.  A tricorn hat completes the look, obscuring her distinctive hair. “Hold it out downstairs a bit longer? I’d be… devastated, if someone was to board and assume you were one of us.”

“Riya, you lied to me before, don’t do it again.”  Beau shakes her head as Vanja lifts her, bringing her below deck with scarcely a second thought.  “Riya, what the FUCK is going on?” 

Unceremoniously, she is dropped back below deck.  

“Say nothing to anyone,”  Vanja warns, as she opens one of the other holds.  “We are in need of your services.”

She drags someone else out, and Beau gets a good look at the dreary coat again.  

Beau sighs, leaning against the curved hull of the ship, listening to the lap of the ocean against the wood.  She may have slept for a while, but she feels just… exhaustion. Beau hadn’t considered what it would be like to see Riya again, only the idea of her.  And she knew Riya would never change from her… more illicit ways. She didn’t know what she wanted from Riya, or why she’d contacted her. Honestly, Yasha had become like 90% of her impulse control.  Yasha and the fact her father kept her indoors, where any of her damage could be minimal.

A sniffle through the wall made her sit back up, startled at the unexpected noise.  

“Hey, who’s there?”  She knocked against the wood.  A third? Or a rat?

“I’m fine,”  A high voice came through.  “Just waiting.”

“Yeah?  Me too.”  Beau slumps back over.  “Know anything about… anything?”

“I take it you have no clue where you are?”  She says. At least, Beau was pretty sure the voice was a female one.  

“Pretty much.”  Beau jumps at the firing of a gun above her head, sending the ship rocking more than it was.  

“Standard entry, I’d suppose.  Blindfold? Or unconscious? Doesn’t really matter, when you get to the root of it.”  There was a pause, as the voice considered what to say next. Eventually, she cleared her throat. “Welcome to the Wanderer.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yasha right now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AREppyQf5uw 
> 
> Yasha is on her way to kick some ass- but will Beau want her to??? (insert dramatic announcer voice) Find out next time on Who Needs Private Security Anyway!?!
> 
> Thanks for reading! As always, find me, my musings, and occasional writings on Tumblr @zoetriestobecoolbutnope


	9. HEY HEY YOU YOU I don't like your girlfriend NO WAY NO WAY I think you need a new one HEY HEY I know that you like me NO WAY NO WAY could I ever be this fucking direct, BAD PLAN BAD PLAN

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Yasha uses all her allies, and Beau makes a few new ones. (And some enemies!)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for coming back to this fic, repeat readers! I'm terribly sorry for the delay- I just moved halfway across the world for college, and I've been settling in. Now, I'm back- and you can expect more updates and more SEXY TIMES yeah yeah I'm not getting laid. ENOUGH ABOUT ME. You don't want to hear about a stranger's sex life, you want to hear about Beau's sex life. Here it is ;)

Yasha

She had a one track mind along her ride to Zadesh. Beau was running through her thoughts, alongside the Stormlord’s ominous warning. Something was happening to her, and the idea that Yasha wasn’t there to protect her made her brace her form against the howling winds and relentless rain and push the horse to continue ever faster to Zadesh.  
It took her too long. Yasha had pushed the horse to its limits, making it to Zadesh in two days of near-constant riding, but if Beau was in trouble two days ago, it was undoubtedly worse now. Molly- her first stop would be to see that bastard. If Beau wasn’t here, he’d know, or have some way of finding out. She jumped from her horse, letting the exhausted animal rest outside the home she shared with the rest of Tealeaf Security Services. With care, she knocked the crusted mud from her boots and walked into the living space.

“MOLLY,” She yelled, hoping he’d respond.

“WHAT.” He did, turning a corner to face her.

“Where the fuck is Beau?” Her hand itches for her greatsword, though she knows this is not Molly’s fault. At least, she hopes he wasn’t involved.

“Oh. Runaway is the best guess.” He returns to the task at hand, preparing food of some sort. Yasha’s nose twitches at the scent of spices and searing meats.

“Runaway? Who was on guard?”

“I took your suggestion.” Molly adjusts the pan, ignoring the popping oils and meat fats. “Sent in Jester and Fjord. They aren’t my best, so now I’m out loads of gold, and the client was able to slip away.”

“Yeah, not buying it.” The Stormlord had said Beau was in danger, so had she gotten herself into it? Or was Mollymauk mistaken about what had happened to Beau? “She ran off? Really?”

“That’s exactly what I got from Fjord and Jester, confirmed by almost everyone in the household.” Molly transfers the cooking meat to a plate. “Want some? Look, I get it. You like her wanna see her safe. From what I gathered from the three of you, she wasn’t happy in that gilded cage of hers. Now she’s out, doing what she wants. She can handle herself.”

“No, I’m heading out.” Yasha begins to leave for the street. “This isn’t right. Where’s Jester?”

“On a job at the docks.” Molly sets his pan to the side. “I’m glad you’re back, by the way. It’s nice to have you around.”

“Yeah, don’t expect me for long.” Yasha rubs the sleep from her eyes, she hasn’t been able to rest much. “I’m heading out again today, probably.”

“Okay then.” Molly walks out of the kitchen, pulling his multicolored coat from a hook on the wall and slipping it on over his slender frame. “I’m coming with you.”

* * *

 

“Jester, my darling!” Molly grins. Yasha, despite her slight protests, was slightly glad to have the ostentatious tiefling looking with her. It helped to have someone with a little more charm help her investigate. “Yasha’s looking for Beau. What do you know? I know, you told her father. But Yasha hasn’t heard.”

“Hi, Yasha, good to see you again,” Jester sets down the crate she’s lifting. “Okay, but it’s not much. Beau told us she wanted to look for a friend of hers, Riva or Rita or something like that. I asked and she said they were fuckbuddies.”

“What?” Yasha coughs, choking slightly. Beau was looking for a… nope. She was not going there.

“Well, she didn’t sayyy fuckbuddy. But she did basically confirm my theory. Basically.” Jester pats Yasha’s cheek, her colder fingers brushing along Yasha’s flushed face. “So then we went to this old tavern- the Thorn and Crown, I think. It was abandoned for a longgg time, few years at least. Did some good drawings, should still be there if you go check.”  
“I’m sure they’re wonderful, darling.” Molly wraps his arm around Jester’s shoulders. “What happened next?”

“She said that Fjord and I would make a great couple and I should make my move. So I did, and then she was gone.” Casually, Jester takes a seat on the crate she had just set down.

“No goodbyes, secret messages?” Yasha asks.

“YOU THINK BEAU LEFT A SECRET MESSAGE?!” Jester shouts, completely unnecessarily from the close proximity to Yasha. “Oh my god yes, maybe she did? I’m not sure though. None that I caught. FJORD!”

“What’s up, guys?” Fjord swoops in, planting a kiss on Jester.

“Yasha thinks Beau left a secret message when she left.” Jester swings her legs back and forth. “Which is so cool, right? I think she might have. Although she didn’t really say goodbye.”

“See.” Molly turns to Yasha, folding his arms. “She distracted the two of them, then ran off to meet with that Ri-something girl. She’s probably long since left Zadesh.”

Yasha sees a speck of blue out the corner of her eye, nestled in the crook of the stone wall. It is not bright, but duller, and it blends into the dirt it lies on. She bends over slightly, pulling a scrap of fine blue silk free from the roughly hewn rocks. It slides between her fingers like silk and smelling like sweat and the ever-present incense in Beau’s chambers.

“Molly,” She shows him the fabric. “Honestly, right now it doesn’t matter if Beau wanted to run away or not. I am going to get you our job back. Fjord, Jester, what ship was docked here…” She made a mental calculation. “Six days ago?”

“That would be,” Fjord counted back. “The Wanderer, I think, right Jester?”

“Yeah, I think that was the one here.” Jester concurs, hitting her legs against the wood rhythmically.

"Ah, darling,"  Fjord frowns, concerned as ever.  Molly loved him on these dock gigs, he was so prone to dot every i and cross all the ts.  "Maybe... be gentle with the crate of Draconian spices?"

Jester stops kicking the crate.  "Okay, but only since you asked so nicely, Oskar."

“Thanks for coming with me, Molly, but I’m going to leave now.” Yasha ties the stray slip of silk into one of her braids. “Don’t expect me back for a while.”

“Bahbapapapap.” Molly grabs her arm. “Nope. You’re not leaving without me.”

“And us.” Jester jumps off the box, crossing her arms and pushing out her chest.

"Yeah, us too, Yasha." Fjord chimes in. "We've got your back."

"That's less important right now." Yasha pulls her coin purse from her satchel, doing some mental math. "How much coin does everyone have?"

"Maybe, twenty-five gold?" Fjord checks his wallet.

Molly nods. "About the same."

"And Jester?" Yasha turns to the proud blue tiefling, a smile on her lips like she's got a secret she can't wait to share.

"Four hundred sixty-two gold." She bounces up and down, letting the coins on her fat belt chime and clank. "And seventy-nine silver."

"Get your money from today and you'll have more, Fjord," Molly proffers. "Though if we're traveling for a while, it might help to go back to the house and pick up a few things...? Yasha...."

Yasha, deep in thought, jolts back to reality. "Sorry?"

"What's the plan, Yasha?" Molly jabs her. "I need to know if I should get my fancy boots."

"Yeah, sure." Yasha scratches her head, her hand lightly brushing against the scrap of blue cloth, Beau's scrap of blue cloth. Molly definitely noticed, but neither he nor Jester or Fjord had teased her on it- which made her feel weird and warm? She'd have to figure that out later. "Good idea. I'm going to go buy us a boat."

"I'm sorry." Jester goes to Fjord, resting her chin on his leather-clad shoulder. "I was thinking about dicks did she say she was going to buy a boat? OH OH YASHA!"

"What?"

"DOES THIS MEAN WE GET TO NAME THE BOAT??"

"If the name you want is "Tusk Love," then no."

"Goddamnit." Jester pouts, throwing herself on the ground. "IT'S MOSTLY MY MONEY, YASHA!"

"Anything but the Tusk Love, Jester."

"Okay then, I'll think of a REALLY good name then."

Beau

 

“So, what’s your story?” Beau was sick of the awkward silence, lasting for what seemed to be a forever after the voice through the wall welcomed her to the wanderer.

“Huh?” The voice seemed confused by her question. “Uh, I don’t even know where to start, I suppose.”

“Okay.” Beau scratches her head, debating if this is really a good idea. Fuck it, if the voice was fae, perhaps introducing herself would get her out of the Wanderer’s hold. “I’m Beau. What’s your name?”

“Most people call me Nott,” she responds in kind. “You aren’t some fae monster who’s going to steal my soul, right?”

“No, if I was, I wouldn’t be here. I was hoping you were, honestly.” Beau laughs, more at ease now that she has a name to the voice. “I have a feeling it’s going to take some serious magic to get us out of here. Or charisma, of which I have neither.”

“I have a few tricks, I’d say.” Nott scratches her head. “The other one, he’s been teaching me some.”

“And how long have you been here, Nott? And the other one too if you know?” Beau bites at her fingernails.

"I've been here six weeks, almost. The other one? Longer." Nott squeaks back. "He's some sort of favorite, they like to bring him out for the raids."

"This is a pirate ship, yes?" Beau listens for Nott's affirmative yes. "Then my guess would be your friend there is a magic user of some sort?"

The door creaks open again- in the conversation, she missed the fact that the cannons, an ever-present sound the past few hours, had ceased firing. The battle was over, it seemed, and the Wanderer had won. Maybe.

Beau pressed her face up against the bars again, peering what she hoped was menacingly at Vanja, who was thrusting the straggly and gaunt figure into the cell shared with Nott. He grunted softly, and Beau heard the scratching of Nott's feet on the ground.

"HEY FUCKFACE," Beau spat at Vanja. "You wanna let me go see your boss, or what?"

"The captain is busy." Vanja slides the key in the lock, closing the barred door shut with a resonating, cold, clang. "And you are not a high priority."

"Did she fuck you?" Beau asks to Vanja's back. She watches the half-orc stiffen, her ear twitching. "I don't care, Riya fucks everyone and it doesn't matter, but did she fuck you? Just wondering if we can find some common ground, you know."

Vanja goes to leave. Beau has no plan- she just knows that fucking with Vanja was a. very easy, b. super fun, and c. something she really really wanted to do. Without Yasha or her father or Xenoth, she was down to like zero impulse control. God, those early days with Riya were fun, just surrendering to your id all the time.  And a lot of sex.

"Really? She didn't fuck you?" Beau sucks in air through her teeth. "It was a pretty sight, I'll tell you. So she never did that thing where she'd bite your bottom lip and it would leave a mark? Or she never copped a feel? Did she do that thing where she grabs your tit and licks it until you don't know what's sweat or saliva or fluids, hey, hey Vanja did she ever grab your cun---"

Beau is cut off by Vanja slamming her against the bars.

"She may not be your captain, but she owns you. And you owe her respect."

Beau feels around her mouth, tasting the metallic tang of her own blood. With incredible aim (she super wished Yasha was there to high-five after), she spat in Vanja's mangy face, watching the blood and saliva run down her forehead and into her right, unblinking yellow eye.

"She left me. She fucked me over." Beau bares her reddened teeth. "I owe her shit, unlike you. Go run back to your master, and dream of the day she'll fuck you with an OUNCE of what she used to fuck me."

"I think you'll soon miss my company, Beauregard." Vanja wipes the spit from her face, chuckling slightly as she leaves the hold.

"Oh, fuck off, you sex-deprived bitch." Beau holds out her middle finger as Vanja shuts the trapdoor.

From the other cell, Beau hears a low, long, laugh.

"I must applaud you," Says a new, lightly accented voice. "That is the hardest I've laughed in a while, Beauregard. I've not seen someone openly threaten Vanja like that."

"Yeah, well a bitch like her doesn't scare me." Beau withdraws her hand, trying to maintain an ounce of confidence.

"Vanja normally breaks people for a smaller offense," The voice advises. "I'd suggest you keep your cool."

"And who might you be?" Beau asks, slumping back against the wall. At least she didn't have to worry about body language here.

"Me?" The voice pauses.

"It's okay, you can tell her." Nott chimes in. "I introduced myself, and you already know her name."

"They call me the Wizard." He starts, slowly. "But you can call me Caleb."

"Caleb, huh?" Beau's interest peaks at the mention of magic. "You do actual magic or party tricks."

"Yes, I do actual magic." Caleb bites at his lips. Though Beau can scarcely see him for more than a few moments, she can tell he's not quite so confident. At least, not as confident as her. "No, I can't get us out."

"Ah, that doesn't fucking matter." Beau's mind begins to knit together a plan. "I'm plotting. And I'm getting both of you out of here with me."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey there you thanks for reading I'm talking to you CLAIRE YEAH I KNOW YOU. Leave a Kudos or comment if you liked this, CLAIRE. This one is for you, CLAIRE. YEAH, THE CLAIRE READING BEAUYASHA SMUT I KNOW YOUR SECRETS. 
> 
> Comments=Love so thanks to everyone who's left one so far (I KNOW YOU HAVEN'T, CLAIRE) (did I seriously just isolate every member of my audience named Claire?? I may come to regret this.)
> 
> And really- if you are Claire, you're great! Thanks so much for reading this!?


	10. Sex is Worship, Be Careful of the God You Burn Your Incense To

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm back, readers. Sorry for the wait- hit some writer's block with a certain scene involving vaginas. Safe to say I pushed past that. Also, I am shook that this hit 2,000 hits- thanks Y'all!
> 
> I'm not sure what my update schedule is going to look like, but I am gonna work on updating more frequently.

Beau

“Right. Everyone is clear on the plan?”

“Ja, if something like this will even work.” Caleb coughs from the other side of the wall. 

“Of course it’ll fucking work.” Beau is insulted by his lack of faith, honestly. “We bust out of here, hop a ride on the first ship we see, Caleb blows them up, we win, it’s awesome.”

As if on cue, the trapdoor opens, and Riya arrives in a puff of gunsmoke and perfume.  At further inspection, she looks worse for the wear- the grey serge coat is torn here and there, the boots covered in flecks of what looks like blood, and a few cuts are still oozing on Riya’s face.  

“Nice to see you doing well, Beau.”  Riya drapes her forearms over the bars, leaning over and cocking her hips.  

“You look like shit, Riya.”  Beau doesn’t move a muscle. 

“Let's talk upstairs, away from this… filth.”  Her eyes flick to the side as she opens the door.  

“Fine.”  Beau slides out of the cell. Riya smacked her ass on the way out. “Aww.  You’re so romantic.”

“Anything for you, babe.”  Riya takes her arm. 

This time, the transition from below decks to above is still piercing and blinding.  The blood splattered on Riya’s boots makes similar patterns on the deck, in the process of being cleaned by bruised deckhands.  The ship is sailing again, the wind pulling the white sails taught. Above the mainmast, Beau watches as the red warning flag is lowered.  

“I see you fought.  And lived.” Beau shuts the door to Riya’s cabin closed behind her.  

“Just barely.”  Riya removes her coat.  “A drink?”

“You don’t need to get me drunk.”  Beau pulls the ribbon from her hair.  “Let me see, maybe I can help.”

Riya pulls her shirt over her head, crossing her arms in the wonderfully graceful thing girls do.  Standing before Beau in her underclothes alone, Beau can see every line of her back, every new scar laid bare across her skin.   Riya hasn’t changed much despite the scars, to Beau’s surprise. Her body has the same lithe curves it did those years ago, the same youth and bounce in her step she had before.  Time has not been hard to Riya. 

“Now you.”  Beau has no problems letting the soiled clothes drop to the ground in a puddle of silk and linen.  Beau knows the change in herself, she sees it in Riya’s eyes as they examine every inch of her newer body- the muscles beaten into her by years of work, the mass of bruises that never quite disappeared, at least to Beau, it seemed that the moment one began to fade from deep blue-black-purple to a pussy yellow, another showed up on a different spot, sore and tender from a new workout.  Her hands were the least changed, but for a few calluses from her staff and red marks where she pulled the wrappings too tight. 

Riya groaned at the sight of Beau, her slender fingers feeling their way around her, tracing around the bruises, now all a few days old.  They were useful, she supposed, in helping her note the passage of time. They served a second purpose now, as Riya pressed her fingers into them, deep enough so that Beau felt every twitch of her fingertips, just shallow enough to keep Beau from passing out.  

“Oh Beau,” Riya grinned.  “I’ve missed this.”

“Shhh,”  Beau sighs.  “Time for talking is later.”

“I need to tell you something first,”  Riya pulls away, sitting down on the bed. 

“If it’s an updated list of who you’ve fucked since me, I don’t particularly care.”  Beau cocks an eyebrow. “I already know it’s not Vanja, so we’re good.”

“Beau,”  Riya says, with that downturn in her voice that made Beau melt a little every time she did it, back when they ruled the underbelly of Zadesh together, wearing diamonds and gold pilfered and plundered for them. “Be serious with me.  I need to ask a favor of you.”

“That’s funny,”  Beau laughs, folding her arms underneath her bare breasts.  “Last I checked, you weren’t in a position to ask favors of me.”

“We need to get your father off our backs, baby.”  Riya tips her head down, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear.  “I need you to help me with a ransom message, get a little money out of this before it’s all done and you’ve cut all ties.”

“How’s he supposed to believe that?”  Beau lies down on the bed next to Riya.  “Come here.”

“What’s your problem with it?”  Riya’s head fits well into the hollow of Beau’s chest, her head right under Beau’s.  “You never liked him, and you’re happier away from that bastard.”

“My problem isn’t with tricking him.”  Beau plays with the tips of Riya’s hair, currently resting above her erect nipple.  “But I’ve run away to be with you before, so what makes this one different?”

“Simple.”  Riya rolls over onto her stomach, her pelvis just below Beau’s.  “You aren’t with me. I have magic people who can do plenty of things.  They’ll send a message in their voice, saying that it’s them who have you, and requesting a certain amount in bounty to be sent to this ship when it comes to dock.  We’ll work out the details later.” 

“You need to be careful,”  Beau plants a quick peck on Riya’s forehead.  “My father is a king. It won’t be easy to fool him.”

“My dear, what’s a king to a god?”  Riya props herself up on her elbows, moving lower down. “I think you said I owed you.  And that I do.”

  
  


Yasha

“Okay, Stormlord.”  Yasha found herself on the deck of a ship, already miles away from Zadesh, as the moon rose ever higher in the night sky. “Last chance.  Is this what you really want me to be doing?”

_ Why are you so doubtful, my warrior? _

“Uh, I don’t know.”  Yasha lets her head rest against the bow.  “It just… the way I feel, it feels like a betrayal of you.”

_ And why is that? _

“It feels holy, my lord.”  Yasha bites her lip as she works out the rest of her murmured prayer.  “I do not know if I can serve two gods, I can barely serve one.”

_ It is a sacrament, indeed.  You can worship two, three, four, five.  _

“Five, my lord?”  Yasha almost laughs.  “I think… I think my heart would burst.”

_ I don’t get jealous, Yasha.  Go and find your god. _

“Okay.  Okay okay, I can try.”

“You’re in looove.”  It takes Yasha a moment to realize this was not the Stormlord, nor another one of the many gods he had said she could worship, but the blue form of Jester, bending over her and cocking her head in a fashion that made her look like a horned, blue, owl.  

“Back off.”  Yasha’s emotions were balancing on a razor’s edge, ready to snap.  

“Okay.  I was going to apologize, but clearly now is not the right time for that.”  Jester begins to walk away, pulling a thick grey blanket tighter around her shoulders.

“Fuck,” Yasha mutters.  “Jester, wait.”

“What.”

“Come back,”  Yasha sighs. 

“Okay,”  Jester sits next to Yasha, letting her legs spread wide on the deck.  

“You were going to apologize?”  Yasha prompts after a few moments of uncomfortable silence.

“I thought you were going to apologize!”  Jester looks at Yasha with indignation. 

“You literally came over and said you were going to apologize.”  Yasha deadpans. “I said nothing of the sort.”

“I thought you were going to at least say sorry for yelling at me,”  Jester pouts. “Okay, how about this. Count of three and I say I’m sorry at the same time you say you’re sorry.”

“Fine.”  Yasha agrees. “One, two, three.  I’m sorry.”

To absolutely nobody’s surprise, Yasha was the only one to actually apologize as Jester stayed silent, save for a few errant snickers.  

“Hey.  You still owe me an apology.”

“Yeah I do,”  Jester giggles.  “But you totally fell for it! That was really funny.”

“Jester.”

“Okay okay, here goes.”  Jester takes a deep breath.  “I am sorry for losing Beau on my watch.  So technically, this is my fault. Well, and Fjord’s, too.  But we should have watched your girlfriend more carefully. Which is why Fjord and I are going to pay you back for the cost of the ship.”

“Thank you, Jester.”  Yasha smiles a little.  

“Can I braid your hair?  I saw you put the silk in there but no offense, it is the prettiest thing in your hair, which is a rat’s nest, and it was in a pile of sewage for like a day, at least.”  

“Okay.  Just put the fabric back in there, when you’re done.”  Jester lightly pulls the scrap of cloth loose and presses it into Yasha’s hand for safekeeping. Her fingers are light along Yasha’s scalp, and it feels nice to have someone let all the braids loose and comb through the knots. 

Jester starts to hum softly, a song that turns into a giggle, then a laugh.  

“What?”

“Take a look.”  Jester hands her a mirror, and Yasha gets a glimpse of her hair- so tightly wound for so long, now frizzy and sticking out of her head at every angle.  She lets herself laugh at her own reflection, at the lion’s mane of white and black hair standing on end. 

“I look like…” Her sentence is racketed with laughs. “I look like a very startled lion or something.”  

“You do!”  Jester rolls backward, laughing. 

“Do you want to go prank Fjord and Molly?”  Yasha says between giggles. 

“OH GOD YES.”

Biting her tongue to keep from laughing, Jester crept downstairs, Yasha in tow.  

“Wait here,”  She told Yasha.  “I’ve thought this through, listen to what I say and you should get it.”  Jester winks as she slips into the wide shared cabin where Molly and Fjord were sleeping.  

Yasha leaned into the door, listening in to what Jester was sharing.  

“Fjord.  Fjord. Fjorddddd, wake up please!”  Jester poked the sleeping half-orc. 

“Jester, what’s goin' on?”  His drawl was further accented by the late hour. 

“The Traveller just warned me about a danger on board.” Jester’s voice quivered.  Damn, she was good at this. “There’s a monster on board, like a lion! Big hair, sharp teeth, dark eyes.”

“Jester, don’t be ridiculous.”  Molly groans from his bunk. “There’s no such thing on this ship unless you count Fjord on two hours of sleep.”

“Ha.”  Yasha heard creaking as Fjord evidently stood up. “I, for one, believe the Traveller and Jester.  Let’s go look for whatever this is.” 

“Thanks, baby.”  Jester smiles. “I swear, it was just around this corner.”

Yasha got ready for them to exit, and as she heard the door creak open, she jumped.  Fjord fell backward as Yasha hissed, shaking her mane of wild hair. 

Jester fell down next to him, sobbing with laughter.  Molly, shirtless, cracked a grin from the doorframe. 

“OH MY GOD, YOU FELL FOR IT.”  Jester made out between cackles. “I CAN’T BELIEVE IT, TRAVELLER, DID YOU SEE?  DID YOU SEE THAT?”

A low chuckle resonates through the ship.  It appears he did, indeed see.

“Nice one, Yasha,”  Molly stuck out his hand, helping Fjord up.  “Nice look, by the way.” 

“Come on, Jester.  Let’s give them space for their beauty rest.”  Yasha nods her head in the direction of the top deck.  “You shouldn’t leave me looking like this.” 

Silently, she added a thank you to the Stormlord- because it was becoming clear to her that she already served more than one god at a time, and it had worked thus far.  

“Thank you,” she said, “for my family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading! If you liked this, leave a comment and hit that kudos button if you haven't already! I super appreciate it! (Especially if you're still reading this even after such a long break!) 
> 
> If you liked this, you might like a look at what the inside of my head looks like. Short of brain surgery, you can get a peek at my Tumblr: @zoetriestobecoolbutnope   
> (Side note: please don't try and actually hack my brain apart that was a joke.)


	11. Love is not a victory march, It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nautical Adventures Continue...

Yasha

Day and night passed again, then another time, with no sign of another ship.  They were running out of time and supplies, at some point, Yasha knew they would need to dock once more to resupply.  

She was pushing it, but the Stormlord was on their side thus far, giving them fair winds and gentle seas.  

“Have you considered that you might not find her?”  Molly had asked her early that morning, after another night of restless sleep.  

“I’m not going to let that happen.”  Yasha walked away, not much in the mood for conversation.  Naturally, she had thought that. She had thought about that and every awful combination that followed:  that Beau was going to slip away forever, that she was dead, that she had gone of her own desires to be with this girl, this Riya or Roma or Risa.  

“We need to think about docking soon,” Fjord reminded her as she took the watch, climbing up to the crow’s nest, high noon sun blaring into her face.  “We’re just a few days sail from Port Dumali, might not be a bad place for a resupply.”

“I know.  We keep the course.”

“We can’t just search the whole ocean, I hope you know that.”  Fjord went to take stock of something or other. 

It was about an hour into her time on top of the ship when she caught sight of another mast on the horizon.

“FJORD,”  She called down.  “Do you see it?”

“Heading in that direction now.”  Fjord squinted up at the crow’s nest.  “Crew is on deck, preparing to board them.”

Yasha climbed down, assessing her crew.  Fjord was navigating with the captain they’d paid,  his eyes fixed on the ship that had been evading them but was now almost within reach.  Jester was fiddling with her holy symbol of the Traveler, Molly was sharpening his swords to a razor’s edge.  They had a few other fighters willing to raid, also on deck. 

She took out her greatsword, letting her fingers feel the runes sunken into the blade.  

“It’d be amazing if you could catch us up to that ship,” She muttered.

The Stormlord responded not by speaking, but with a gust of wind strong enough that Yasha could almost make out figures on the deck.  

“Send them a warning shot, Fjord.”  Yasha keeps her eyes locked on the ship.  “One over her port bow.”

 

Beau

“It won’t hurt, I promise,”  Riya unsheathes a long jewel handled knife from her sleeve, using the honed blade to peel a green apple.  “All you have to do is make polite conversation for a few moments with Mr. Widowgast over here, just enough for him to get a proper sense of your father and send him a message.”

“One more thing,” Caleb, squinting painfully from the intense sunlight on deck, looks out of place, sitting in one of two wooden chairs.  “I need a tidbit of information, something only he would know, so he knows I’m not just completely insane or bluffing.”

“Okay,” Beau takes the second chair, her stomach in knots.  “My father… Darling, could you step aside for a moment?”

“Why’s that?”

“There are things about him you don’t know.”  Beau looks at her with as serious a look as she can muster.  “Things I’d like to keep private. Please, just give me a moment.”

“Anything for you,”  Riya takes a few long strides down the deck, just out of earshot.  

“Right, listen carefully.”  Beau leans in, beginning her confessional.  “You aren’t going to contact my father. You’re sending a completely different message to a woman named Yasha.  Very tall, black and white hair, buff, one blue eye, one violet eye. She might be on a boat already but could still be in Zadesh.  If she is who I think she is, she’s looking for me already.”

“I need a little more than that for the spell to work,”  Caleb looks over Beau’s shoulder at the masses of an armed crew on the top deck.  “What does this Yasha like? People around her?”

Beau hesitates.  She doesn’t really know Yasha, does she?  “She likes… rats,” Her voice trails off. Friends?  She doesn’t know any, other than a connection to Jester and Fjord.  “There’s a blue tiefling woman and a half-orc man she might know, maybe she’s with them now.”  

“Does she have anything of yours?  What is your connection?” Caleb tries to coax something more from her.  “Okay, try this. Out of anyone in the world you could try and talk to, you chose her.  Why is she important to you, why is she the one you trust to come and get you?”

“Because that’s what she’s done for me,”  Beau tries to hold an image of Yasha in her mind.  “She’s coming for me, even if I don’t contact her. I… I know she’s going to come for me.”

“That’ll have to do.” Caleb scratches the scruffy beard on his chin.  “Okay, normally we also get an automatic response. So what would your father say?  And what would you say to him, as proof this is from you?”

“I’d say, ‘It’s your daughter, come pay for me to get out of here.  Or don’t, I don’t care.’ And he wouldn’t believe me, let’s be honest.”

“Well, considering that is far from the response she wants, we will take some creative liberty.”  Caleb thinks for a moment. “I will say that you are on a pirate ship surrounded by unfriendlies, who will let you go for money, which will be sent to a city of Riya’s choice.  And he will comply.”

“I hope this works.”  Beau exhales, then waves Riya over.

“I’m casting the spell now,”  Caleb announces. “We should have a response soon.”

Beau closed her eyes and hoped she’d given Caleb enough to send the message.  

 

Yasha

Within moments of their warning shot hitting the waves on the far side of the other ship, she saw a frenzy of activity on both boats.  Around her, one of the crewmen takes a look at the other ship through the scope of a decked out crossbow, sending a foot and a half long arrow with attached cord into their main mast.  

She could swear she saw a figure in blue moving below decks.  Around her, the noises blended out into an all-consuming rage.  Yasha didn’t hear Fjord shout at her to wait, didn’t listen to the crew explain their plan to board. She began to run, from one end of the ship to the other, throwing herself over the edge of the rail to the other boat, a good 30 feet away.  From between her shoulders, she felt her big skeletal wings unfurl, giving her just enough momentum for a three-point landing on the deck of the other ship. 

A voice began to speak in her mind, something that was not unusual for the champion of a god, but this was a voice with an unfamiliar cadence, a thick accent of some sort.  

“Yasha?”  The voice asked.  “My name… doesn’t matter so much.  What matters is that I am with Beau, the girl you are looking for.  Please reply.”

Yasha shakes it off.  

 

Beau

“No reply yet.”  Caleb keeps his eyes closed.  “I will try again.”

Beau paces the length of the deck.  She didn’t know Yasha well enough, did she?  

Caleb certainly didn’t know Yasha.  

 

Yasha

“Okay listen, Arschgeige.”  The strange word began to pull her out of her rage.  “Next to me is a girl who says you are coming for her.  We’re docking at Port Dumali in three days. I will see you there.”

“Now,”  Molly’s voice comes from a gangplank now across the bow.  “My friend here is looking for a woman. Early twenties, wears a lot of blue, fairly annoying, brown hair, blue eyes.”

“There’s no young woman here,”  Voices come in and out. 

“Then you wouldn’t mind if we did a quick search?”  Fjord suggests. “Stowaways, maybe?”

Yasha closes her eyes.  

“I’ll be there.”  She thinks, waiting for her friends to return to the deck.  Likely with no news of Beau.

“Nothing.”  Fjord comes back.  “Apologies.”

Yasha walks away.  

“Yasha,”  Molly follows her closely.  “I’m sorry that wasn’t her. But we need to resupply.  Yasha.”

“Port Dumali.”  She says. “Can we get there in three days?”  

“Sure,”  Fjord calculates.  “Should be fine if we don’t hit storms.  Why there?”

“Because that’s where she’s going to be.”  Yasha smiles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you found this the right amount of frustrating and sweet! You know your fic is slow burn when even you are groaning at the page and want to just have them make out already, damnit!!! 
> 
> Hit that kudos button and leave a comment if you liked this fic, I always love hearing back from you! As always, you can find me on Tumblr @zoetriestobecoolbutnope


	12. An Apology and Some Announcements

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Long Story Short: I'm going to come back to this. Eventually.

Hi everyone, 

Thank you so much for reading Who Needs Private Security Anyway.  I've been blown away by how liked this work has been!  Therefore, I felt I needed to post an explanation for what's going on with this one.  

Thing one:  I got pretty far back on CR Campaign 2 about when the Mighty Nein started their pirate adventures and decided to press pause until I finished that arc.  I have, in fact, caught up, which brings me to thing two.

Thing two: I jumped the gun on writing this fic.  Really, I didn't know enough about the Mighty Nein to write an accurate fic (started writing this pre-episode 29, folks!), and now the new background information changes how I would characterize most of these characters.  

So here's the plan.  For now, I'm marking Who Needs Private Security as completed.  Hopefully, in a few months, I'll be ready to start piecing it together and re-writing the parts that are no longer functional.  I hope you'll be willing to stick around!  I won't be completely gone from AO3, and I have a few other works on the horizon I want to see through before tackling this absolute beast of a fic.  

Thank you, thank you, thank you. I hope to welcome you back to the high seas in the future.  

XOXO,

Just 

**Author's Note:**

> I present to you: Beauregard, useless lesbian. Expect more blushing, nosebleeds, and trips.
> 
> Thanks for reading! Please hit that kudos button or leave a comment if you enjoyed this fic and want to see more.


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